Duvduv

Very simple point: Whenever they are said to have been written, if the epistles ascribed to Paul are not what they seem, i.e. that they are actually combined/cut and pasted productions, then the narrative as identified in Jesus mystery myth theory cannot stand if it depends on a "Paul" who wrote letters concerning a non-historical celestial Christ.

In which case, there is an alternative explanation (which is not discussed much as far as I can tell) to either a mythical OR historical Christ in the epistles, i.e. that the epistles adopt (or perhaps plagiarize) the writings of monotheist sermonizers with some elements added by redactors who believed in the existence of a historical Christ BEFORE the emergence of the full 1st century Jesus gospel narrative.

Toto

Some aspects of Doherty's theory depend on the Pauline epistles being written in the mid-first century. But mythicism in general does not depend on the Pauline epistles. In fact, without the Pauline epistles, it is difficult to claim that there was any Christianity in the first century, and this is difficult to reconcile with a historical Jesus

Duvduv

Then it could be argued that there is too much focus on identifying the epistles with an author named Paul who believed in a celestial Christ being if in fact it is there is equally reasonable cause to argue that the epistles (or many others such as 1John, Peter, James and Jude) are not actually letters written by a single individual at all.

I had thought that the crux of the argument of the mythical was showing that "Paul" didn't believe in a historical Jesus when in fact there are other ways of explaining the lack of a historical Jesus in the epistles without relying on a HJ apologist approach.

aa5874

The claim that there was NO human Jesus depends DIRECTLY on the written statements found in the so-called Pauline Epistles.

Those who claim there was an actual human Jesus use Galatians 1.19 therefore it is IMPERATIVE the Entire Galatians and the Pauline writings be SCRTUNISED thoroughly for veracity and historical accuracy.

Even if it is PRESUMED the Pauline writings are authentic then the credibilty of the authors will still have to established.

The Pauline writers made NO claim that they wrote before c 70 CE and did NOT state that they Met Jesus as a man.

Duvduv

Hence, if the epistles are merely composites of letters written by monotheists adapted with additions of early HJ believers BEFORE the emergence of the gospels and used for sermonizing/didactic purposes with no intentions of creating a new testament canon, then where is the option for there to be a verifiable mythological/celestial Christ sect?

Even GMark is often considered to be an adaptation of the epistles, which would only work IF the epistles represnted whole letters written by "Paul" with just a few "interpolations." I wonder what people such as Detering, Doherty and Gandy et al think about this.

I already suggested composites in the case of Titus and Romans and Galatians.

Of course the question also arises as to how often the composites themselves as well as the gospels might have been interpolated before they became official canon.

MrMacSon

Certainly the Dutch Radicals were very skeptical of all the epistles attributed to Paul. We don't know who the authors of the other texts really were, either.

Duvduv

MrMacSon, do any of the Dutch Radicals present a case for composites in the epistles merging later ordinary Orthodox ideas into otherwise monotheistic sermons (with discrepancies and contradictions) as I have suggested as an alternative to the celestial/mythical Paul writer?